


The Convention

by Seiberwing



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Comic-Con, Cosplay, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2071926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiberwing/pseuds/Seiberwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Night Vale Community Radio does an in-depth look at Night Vale's first ComicCon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Convention

**Author's Note:**

> Believe it or not I had the idea for this fic way before Dashcon happened. The debacle itself and its involvement with Night Vale was just what gave me the last push to actually get it out of my head and onto some pixels. Today's weather, due to being in an inaudible medium, is "The Clock" by 19th century French poet/weirdo Charles Baudelaire.

You are a three pound brain piloting a steadily decaying machine made of meat and bone. Your heart is a pump of thick flesh. Your stomach is a bag of acid. Your nerves are electrified wires sparking with fear and pain--and you have lost the owner’s manual. Welcome…to Night Vale.

And welcome to the first annual Night Vale ComicCon! It is wonderful that our town has finally embraced that combination of commercialism, fanaticism, and wasted emotional resources that is the world of fandom. I am here at the Marcus Vanston Convention Center and Fondue Depository with the mobile broadcasting equipment to report on this fun event.

The Night Vale Girl Scouts are here in force, sporting a group cosplay theme of strong women in video games. Janice Carlsberg, who you may remember both as my niece and as the recent holder of the highest sniper accuracy record for her school year, has an amazing Samus Aran costume that she personally forged. I would also like to give special attention to Rachel Tanner, who has dressed up her service dog Ramona as the sun goddess Okami with skillful application of body paint and household fungus. This is an especially impressive feat given that secret terriers are completely invisible with the exception of eyes that burn like pebbles of blue flame and the wisps of white smoke that drift from their footsteps.

This adorable scene of crafting skill and youthful passion is unfortunately blighted by the presence of their escort in a gaudy Princess Peach costume. You can’t see it, listeners, and be grateful that you have been granted such mercy. Ugh, it looks like it was bought on discount from Party City and then thoroughly chewed by an army of Goombas. It’s obvious that anyone in such a hideous outfit has neither played the games they purport to exalt, nor put any effort into the noble art of cosplay. Candy Crush doesn’t make you a gamer, Steve Carlsberg!

Pictures of these amazing costumers who do not mangle craft foam in the name of foul art will be available on the internet, as Intern Asher is with me taking photos for the Night Vale Community Radio Facebook page. In addition to the many fantastical costumes, art pieces, and pulsating flesh constructs created by dedicated fans we will also show the intricate architecture that intertwines across the ceiling of the convention hall, forming diagrams of protection against nefarious energies that would otherwise play havoc with distracted psyches. Given that our guest of honor is Sleepy Hollow star and Tumblr phenomenon Orlando Jones, it was felt that precautions needed to be taken.

Despite Orlando being a chaos nexus that causes mirrors to temporarily display fields of cotton blankets and televisions to whisper half-heard messages about the fickle nature of memory, we are very honored to have such a big media star attending our humble Night Vale ComicCon. Orlando will be talking about his experiences on the set of Sleepy Hollow, and hopefully dropping a few hints about what will happen during the exciting season beginning in October. He will also be discussing the history behind many of the real-life events depicted in the show, such as Paul Revere’s midnight ride and George Washington’s temporary resurrection from the dead via occult Masonic rituals.

Listeners, there appears to be an unexpected ball pit in the middle of Hall C. It is just sitting there alone in the hall, surrounded by expanses of concrete and the high girders of the ceiling, which is strange because Hall C was until recently a cozy meeting room with a blood fountain in the corner. We managed to reach the concomm via cunning traps baited with strawberry Pocky and they denied all knowledge of the ball pit’s existence, stating that even if it did exist it would be larger than we believe it to be. Updates on the ball pit as events occur, or do not occur, or occur at differing sizes than desired.

Well-read local hero Tamika Flynn, in a stunning display of courage, is hosting twelve out of twenty of our convention panels in order to ensure accuracy of media analysis. Panel topics vary from serious issues such as “Racism in post-Wertham Comics” and “Alan Moore’s Anti-Librarian Techiniques” to more lighthearted subjects such as “How Horror Movies Would Be Very Short If Anyone Showed a Lick of Sense”. She is also judging the “Joss Whedon: What Is the Deal There?” discussion competition, which will include both a roundtable critique of his major cinematic themes and physical combat atop the recently installed Wall of Sorrows. I am personally intrigued by the panel on mountains, which will address why these bizarre constructs are such a recurrent theme in both literature and ‘mockumentaries’ such as Everest.

The most-anticipated _and_ most-feared panel, of course, is the panel on shipping. Attendees are reminded that the sheriff’s secret police will be in attendance to ensure that the discussion is calm, pleasant, and adheres to standards of basic decency for the general Night Vale populace. They are additionally reminded that shippers with misguided views will be subject to helpful reconditioning in the ConSuite, and that there’s really a lot of textual support for Ginny/Draco if you just read the books with the proper mindset.

The ball pit appears to have moved from the empty void of Hall C, except for the fact that it still remains in Hall C. In fact the ball pit is existing simultaneously in all halls at once, with the exception of the Agents of SHIELD panel in Room 3S. This is understandable given the show’s reputation, but the ball pit should really give it a few episodes before dismissing it out of hand.  
Intern Asher, would you mind going and taking a few pictures? It might be noteworthy, or at least good for a few memes. Meanwhile, I need to go see if I can find some Ghost in the Shell figurines for Carlos. As you all know, Carlos is unfortunately still developing a strategy for returning from the endless desert on the other side of the oak doors, but he has reassured me that it will only take a short time longer before he is back here. In the meantime I have been trying to build his collection of intricate and anatomically precise ball-jointed anime sculptures, as I like to consider myself a caring partner who is tolerant of his boyfriend’s interests. His weird, weird interests.

On that note, let us move on to the dealer’s room, where we OH MY GOSH CAT EAR HEADBANDS OH THEY’VE GOT LITTLE RIBBONS ON THEM OH MY GOSH ahem. Where there are many skilled local craftspeople selling fine works of art, who I will be supporting with the budget accorded to me by Station Management. A few stalls down I can see a cluster of unknowable figures surrounding Old Woman Josie, their broad wings dark yet shimmering as they huddle around a rack of Jayne hats sewn by the tarantula after-school arts club. All of them are wearing trenchcoats and attempting to imitate some resemblance of stubble across their ovular androgynous faces, besides a single holdout that looks like Tilda Swinton. They are discussing the historicity of steampunk in hushed tones.

Intern Asher has returned with news on the ball pit, and also a left hand composed of interconnected pulsating red orbs. A few con-goers have attempted to enter the ball pit and have become almost completely submerged, their bodies slowly compressing and separating like multicolored cells swimming in a sea of plasma. _An extra hour,_ they whisper. _An extra hour in the ball pit. If a moment can last an eternity, an extra hour will engulf the universe. Spend an extra hour in the ball pit._ I admit to being tempted, listeners. It’s such a small container and yet it seems to contain such depths, such breadth…

On the other hand I really want to go to the panel on AUs. With Intern Maureen back with us I have some exciting new plans for my next fanfiction! While I educate myself on the intricacies of mermaid slashfic, I take you to the weather. 

* * *

  
Impassive clock! Terrifying, sinister god,  
Whose finger threatens us and says: "Remember!  
The quivering Sorrows will soon be shot  
Into your fearful heart, as into a target;  
Nebulous pleasure will flee toward the horizon  
Like an actress who disappears into the wings;  
Every instant devours a piece of the pleasure  
Granted to every man for his entire season.  
Three thousand six hundred times an hour, Second  
Whispers: _Remember!_ — Immediately  
With his insect voice, Now says: I am the Past  
And I have sucked out your life with my filthy trunk!  
 _Remember! Souviens-toi_ , spendthrift! _Esto memor_!  
(My metal throat can speak all languages.)  
Minutes, blithesome mortal, are bits of ore  
That you must not release without extracting the gold!  
Remember, Time is a greedy player  
Who wins without cheating, every round! It's the law.  
The daylight wanes; the night deepens; remember!  
The abyss thirsts always; the water-clock runs low.  
Soon will sound the hour when divine Chance,  
When august Virtue, your still virgin wife,  
When even Repentance (the very last of inns!),  
When all will say: Die, old coward! it is too late!"

* * *

  
During the break between panels, the ball pit rose. The flickering balls with their obscene coloration joined together and came up from the inflatable pool to merge into a towering creature covered in gaping maws with thick trashing tongues. _An extra hour,_ it called to those around it, and we were held in awe of the ball pit’s majesty. Could we not all come together into a blissful fan union within the ball pit, devoid of concerns about the fleeting nature of material possessions and decaying bodies? An extra hour will engulf the universe, and without the universe there will be no pain, no frustration, no concerns about refunds for lost tickets. There will only be the orb. There will be only the hour.

While we stood agape, a tiny group of warriors clad in Attack on Titan jackets stepped up to challenge the monstrosity of the pit. Swinging from ziplines attached to the racks of the Nintendo t-shirt booth they plunged their sharp, poisoned swords into the orbs that composed upper torso of this incredible many-faced creature. As each popped they spilled forth a gelatinous substance with the consistency of cryptic mayonnaise until the creature staggered and fell to the ground, scattering into a mass of scattered plastic and disgorging those poor souls consumed by the ball pit’s endless hunger. The congoers lay in puddles of half-melted craft foam, glitter smeared across their faces and expressions of horrified contentment. They were dragged free of the wreckage and nursed back to sanity by repeated games of Pandemic, a game often used to impart messages about the importance of teamwork and good hygiene in the face of the inevitability of death and the impending disease-ridden collapse of all we know.

Yes, in the end all things are fleeting. The Night Vale ComicCon is coming to a close. Weary travelers, their feet aching and their heads spinning with sugar intoxication, pull their bright wigs from their heads and drag their bags of precious treasures towards the exit. Orlando Jones is carefully packed into a large shipping crate to be flown back to his home on the cloud-encircled high cliffs of the Trollando Estate, where he will return to gathering Ichabbietrina fanfiction to feather his glittering nest. We find ourselves once again forced to confront a world of school, of jobs, of lives without cosplay or Tumblr shorthand.

Listeners, here are no extra hours in life. Obsessions come and go, as do moments of happiness gleaned from a lingering look between actors exhibiting false personalities for a quick paycheck. But so do our lives, listeners. The universe does not care if you command a large fandom populated by teeming hordes, or if you are the single lonely fan filling the only slot in an AO3 category. It does not care if you wear closet cosplay or a My Little Pony inspired steampunk ensemble that you created with your own hands. The universe itself is fleeting and even that inevitability causes it neither fear nor joy. Let us join together in our weird, unspeakable passions, for it is left only to us to care.

Until the next convention,

Good night, fans of Night Vale. Good night.


End file.
